Cayman Islands.”
“Which local bank does it use? The Cayman banks are more helpful to us nowadays.”
Naomi sighed. “If only. No, all I could pick up was a PO box.”
“So,” he said, “another dead end.”
She nodded. “For the moment, at least.”
They burned the rest of the afternoon writing their first report for Henry Holt Carson, not an easy assignment, considering both the lack of hard information and the one bit of news sure to bring out their ad hoc employer’s ire.
The more they worked on the draft, the more anxious Naomi became. “Let’s emphasize the increasingly cloudy picture the evidence is providing,” she said. “That’s sure to please him.” After a grunt from McKinsey, she plowed on. “And maybe we should omit the part about Alli being with Jack.”
“What?” McKinsey’s head snapped up. “Are you nuts? That’s about the only solid news we have for him. She isn’t lost and she isn’t on her own.”
“She’s with Jack; just what he doesn’t want. He’ll have a shit fit.”
McKinsey brushed away her words. “Not our concern. It goes in the report. End of story.”
Naomi brought her eyes back down to the draft. He was right—of course he was. But she couldn’t help thinking that the news would put Jack at the top of Henry Holt Carson’s enemy list. She tried to continue typing on her computer keyboard, but found that her fingers wouldn’t work. She sat brooding for a moment, aware that McKinsey was eyeing her. Then she pushed her chair back and went and got some coffee from the office machine. Its bitterness matched her mood. She said to hell with it, dumped in some half-and-half instead of two-percent milk, added three teaspoons of real sugar instead of Splenda, and knocked back half a cup before she got back to her desk. God forbid it should be hot, rather than lukewarm.
After she sat down, she stared morosely at the text on her screen. She realized that she hated working for Carson. Hell, she hated Carson himself. He was so unlike his brother, whose sudden and shocking death still haunted her.
McKinsey looked up suddenly. “You’re still thinking about him, aren’t you?”
She said nothing, but could not meet his gaze.
“You’re getting yourself into trouble, you know that.”
Her eyes flicked up. “What the hell does that mean?”
He leaned forward, elbow on his desk. “Naomi, your feelings for McClure are one thing, but when they start to cloud your professional judgment—”
“Message received,” she said shortly. “Let’s just drop it, okay?”
He kept his eyes on her for a moment, then got back to work.
Naomi forced her fingers to start typing again. Inwardly, she was seething. What right had Pete to admonish her when he was working his own private agenda? But she could say nothing. She needed to find out what he was involved in, and why, before she confronted him.
After a cheap, heartburn dinner, they drove over to Twilight. There was no talk between them. Naomi’s mood had continued to sour during the long, tedious day.
At the club, they interviewed patrons until after midnight. Many of them remembered Arjeta Kraja, but no one claimed to be her friend or to know any of her friends. As to her family, no one had a clue. It looked as if Schiltz had been right about her: an illegal immigrant, and, judging by her lack of friends, not very long in the U.S., either. Just after midnight, they called it quits, and Naomi had gone home, feeling frustrated and helpless.
After failing to sleep, she dressed, got back in her car, and drove to Cathedral Avenue. Parking across from Pete’s apartment building, she sat with her arms folded, her mind full of anger and tangled emotions.
After what seemed like an endless time, sleepy gray light stole into the street. The facade of the massive building was sheened, as if it were weeping. Naomi stared at the entrance. The glass in the door shimmered with reflections from the occasional passing car or truck.
Then, as she watched, there was a brief flare of light, as if from a match or a lighter, and Naomi sat up straighter in her seat. She thought she caught a glimpse of Pete standing just behind the door, smoking. Had he made her? A film of sweat broke out on her upper lip.
A moment later, the door swung open and the young woman, led by her toy poodle, came down the steps. They walked several feet, until the poodle pulled her to the curb. She waited patiently, smoking while the dog peed in the gutter. She wore the same reflective raincoat and stiletto-heeled boots, but this morning she was without a hat. Her blond hair looked like liquid gold. Naomi frowned. There was something decidedly familiar about the face, the eyes especially, which were neither hazel nor gray, but some color she could not define. Then her heart started to beat so fast and hard she felt as if it was in her throat. The woman looked in her direction. The poodle had finished its business. She stepped off the curb and walked diagonally across the avenue, heading directly toward where Naomi sat, trapped behind the wheel of her car.
Her strides were long, almost like a man’s, her strong thighs working like pistons. Her high-heeled boots left imprints on the wet macadam. Naomi could not help envying the perfection of her legs. Then she was on the sidewalk, abreast of Naomi’s car. Naomi engaged the automatic door locks. Leaning down, the young woman tapped with a fingernail on the window.
“Open the door,” she mouthed. “Let me in.”
Naomi stared at her, unmoving. A moment later, a silver-plated .25 appeared in the woman’s hand. When she tapped on the glass again it was with the muzzle of the handgun.
Naomi calculated the time it would take to draw her gun, or start the car and peel out. The odds were stacked heavily against her. She opened the car doors and the woman slid inside. She gave a little tug on the leash and the toy poodle leaped into her lap. She had square-cut nails, like a man; she wore no jewelry of any kind.
“Are you going to tell McKinsey?” Naomi said.
“Why would I do that?”
She had a voice that hinted at exotic places. Naomi suspected that English was not her native language. Up close, her eyes were an astonishing mineral color, carnelian maybe. She had the kind of wide, sensual mouth Naomi would have killed for. There was a strength about her that caused a warning bell inside Naomi to sound.
“You two work together.”
The woman cocked her head. “Where did you get that idea?”
“Yesterday, you came out of Pete’s building at almost the same moment as him, at a very early hour.”
“Well, it seems as if we’re all up early.”
Naomi stared at her. She tried to ignore the muzzle of the .25 that was pointed at her chest. “Are you claiming you and McKinsey don’t know each other?”
“No, not at all,” the woman said. “But we don’t work together.”
Naomi tipped her head slightly. “How did you know I was here?”
“Peter was foolish to let himself be seen leaving Fortress.”
“So you’ve been following me? Who are you?”
A small smile curved the woman’s lips. “You mean you don’t recognize me?”
“I admit you look familiar.”
“But you don’t know from where.”
Naomi nodded uncertainly. The answer seemed tantalizingly close. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
“No.” The poodle made a small sound and the woman rubbed it behind its ears. Its tiny pink tongue came out and licked her fingers. “We haven’t.”
“Then where—?”
“But you
“Good God!” Memories shifted in Naomi’s head, gears clicked, and all at once her brain seemed to implode. She had been standing behind and just to the left of the FLOTUS in the enormous hall of the Kremlin during the reception that followed the signing of the security pact between the United States and Russia. The atmosphere had been festive, the air thick with hard, cryptic Russian. Jack had walked in with her, and later, after the POTUS was dead and the FLOTUS was in a coma, after they had returned home aboard Air Force One, demoralized and in mourning, Jack had told her … “It can’t be.”
